
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 

Chap. , Copyright No. 

Shel£._(I/ 3_. 

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



COMPANIONS OF THE 
SORROWFUL WAY. 



"what are these which are arrayed in 
white robes and whence came they?" 

''these ARE THEY WHICH CAME OUT OF 
GREAT TRIBULATION, AND HAVE WASHED THEIR 
ROBES AND MADE THEM WHITE IN THE BLOOD 
OF THE LAMB." 



Companions 
of the Sorrowful Way 



7 

John Watson 

(Ian Maclaren) 




Copyright, 1897 
V By John Watson 



Sanibcrsi'tg Press 
John Wilson and Son, Cambridge, U.S.A. 



•ffn ilBemotfam 

THOMAS HOLDER 



Contents 



PAGE 



Concerning the Way Itself . . ii 
The Three Intimates of Jesus . . 29 
The Owner of Gethse'mane . . 47 
The Bearer of Christ's Cross . 69 

A Noble Lady 89 

The Daughters of Jerusalem . .109 

A Malefactor 129 

A Roman Officer 151 

The Funeral of Jesus . . .167 



Concerning 
Way Itself 



Concerning the 
Way Itself 



NO one can have any doubt 
where the Way ended, but 
he may have two minds as to 
where the Way began. If life is 
to be judged rather by its gen- 
eral trend than by the acute ex- 
perience of a few hours, then it 
should never be forgotten that all 
His days the Man of Sorrows was 
carrying His burden. If life, on 
the other hand, be estimated not 
by the running of a sand-glass, 
but by the beating of the heart, 
then surely our Lord endured 
II 



Companions of 



more cruel agony on His last day 
than in all His years. There was 
the unseen Cross of divers afflic- 
tions, which rested on His life and 
weighed down His soul from the 
cradle to the Upper Room, and this 
was a sore discipline ; and there 
was the visible cross of two rough 
beams which was laid upon His 
bleeding shoulders and weighed 
His body to the ground ; and this 
was the symbol of an unspeak- 
able tribulation. There were the 
clouds, which from early morning 
flecked the sky of our Master's 
life, and there was the black massy 
storm which at the last burst on 
His head. As the devout Chris- 
tian chooses, he may join him- 
self to the Lord in the Sorrowful 



12 



The Sorrowful Way 



Way at Gethsemane, or three and 
thirty years earlier at the manger 
of Bethlehem. And it may not 
be unprofitable for the disciple to 
remind himself that the Lord was 
walking in the Sorrowful Way 
before the Incarnation, as He suf- 
fered and sorrowed over backslid- 
ing Israel unto bitter crying and 
lamentations, and that He is still 
to be found therein, as He shares 
from day to day the temptations 
and griefs of His Church. 

Many happy days of childhood 
He must have lived at home with 
His holy Mother in the mountain 
village of Nazareth, amid the 
woods, and flowers, and fields, and 
animals which He loved. Yet the 
pain of self-repression is already 
13 



Companions of 



His, and the moan of the offended 
little ones is heard in His after- 
speech. Some quiet years of 
manhood He also spent at the 
carpenter's bench, where He was 
baptised into the toil of the world 
before he was baptised into its 
sin, and in the peasant life, whose 
ways were to run for ever through 
His parables. Yet it is evident 
from His discourses that He had 
tasted the weariness of labour and 
had been partaker of the unjust 
lot of the poor. Outside Nazareth 
His path, after a brief sunshine, 
* lay in ever deepening shadows. 
People followed Him in crowds 
only to leave Him in displeasure. 
He called twelve disciples, who 
pained Him daily by their slowness 
14 



The Sorrowful Way 

of understanding. In one village 
He was able to heal a few sick ; 
in the next He could do nothing 
because of the people's unbelief. 
When He made His appeal to the 
good folk they suspected and 
misunderstood Him. When the 
publicans and evil-livers came to 
Him it was a cause of offence. 
One of His chosen band was a 
traitor, and there was not one on 
whom He could rely. No servant 
of His has ever fulfilled a harder 
ministry than the Master : from 
Capernaum to Jerusalem — lonely, 
rejected, disappointed, grieved — 
He walked in the Sorrowful 
Way. 

The devout soul will not fail to 
see already the print of the nails 
IS 



Companions of 

on the paths of Galilee, or to hear 
the sighing of Jesus' heart as He 
spake in the synagogues ; but the 
Church will ever count the last 
day of His life the sum of sorrow, 
and, although she may not always 
have the pictures before her eyes, 
she has ever the Stations of the 
Cross in her heart. As a vine 
through the long summer time 
drains its sap into the grapes, and 
in autumn the purple clusters are 
trodden in the wine-press, so was 
Jesus' life pressed into the Cup 
of Salvation, and the world has 
drunk of its sweetness. Sorrow 
having followed this Man all His 
days, now prepared her crown and 
set it on His head, and of all the 
ruby gems not one was wanting. 
i6 



The Sorrowful Way- 



He was betrayed by one disciple, 
denied by another, and forsaken 
by all. He was despised by His 
nation, cast out by His Church, 
condemned by His rulers, refused 
justice by the Romans ; He was 
counted a deceiver of the people, 
a rebel against law, a blasphemer 
against God. He was arrested, 
bound, scourged ; He was spat 
upon, mocked, crucified. Having 
endured huge pains of soul and 
body, it seemed as if God Him- 
self had forsaken Him, and after 
this fashion He travelled the 
Sorrowful Way. 

As the Race once walked with 
God amid the trees of Eden, and 
after a long journey will at last 
come into the place where is the 

2 17 



Companions of 

tree of life, with its twelve manner 
of fruits and its leaves for the 
healing of the nations, it was 
fitting that like human life, the 
Way should begin and end in a 
garden. First there is the garden 
of Gethsemane, where Jesus had 
His oratory and met with God, 
and the angels of God minis- 
tered to Him ; and there is the 
garden of Joseph, where Jesus 
had His bed-chamber and those 
whom He had saved laid Him 
to rest, and He slept in peace 
after His sore travail. Between 
the two gardens the Way com- 
passed all the varieties of life : in 
the valley of Kedron and on the 
hill of Calvary ; in the country 
with its vines and olives, in the 
i8 



The Sorrowful Way 



city with its streets and crowds. 
Before He left the city, Jesus had 
been in a king's palace, and an 
ecclesiastical court, and a judg- 
ment hall, and a barracks. He 
was with kings, priests, governors, 
soldiers ; He was with women, 
country folk, working people, 
malefactors. For the Way of 
Sorrow passes through all classes, 
all houses, all places, and therein 
Jesus walked from end to end, 
so that at whatever point one 
stands he may find himself with 
Jesus. 

Between the way of this last 
day and the way in which Jesus 
had walked all His days, there 
remains this difference, that while 
before Jesus was chiefly active, 
19 



Companions of 

now He is nearly passive. For 
three years He preached the 
Evangel in the synagogues, by 
the well-side, in boats moving 
gently upon the waters of the 
lake, on the grassy slope of hills. 
Now He holds His peace, and 
will answer nothing. Day and 
night had He laboured, journey- 
ing from city to city, untiring, 
self-forgetful, eager. Now He is 
led backwards and forwards at 
the pleasure of His guards. His 
joy before was to heal the sick, 
to raise the dead, to comfort 
those who mourned. Now His 
great power is hindered and 
sleeps as He Himself is smitten 
and wounded. Once His work 
was to gather disciples to His 
20 



The Sorrowful Way 

side and instruct them in the 
mysteries of God's kingdom. 
Now, His desire is to secure 
their safety, and to see them de- 
part in peace. For a lifetime He 
had set Himself to do the will 
of His Father, for the last day 
He resigned Himself to bear the 
same will, which was ever blessed 
and ever good. 

If it were given unto us to 
choose the way wherein we should 
walk, is there one of us would 
not prefer the way of doing to the 
way of suffering? What soldier 
would not rather charge on the 
most forlorn hope, with an almost 
certainty of dying in the breach, 
than stand on the deck of a sink- 
ing vessel till she made the last 

21 



Companions of 



plunge, and the cold waters closed 
over his head? For he who 
charged had done something ; put- 
ting heart into an army, showing 
the road to victory, giving his 
body for a bridge ; but he who 
stood did nothing, striking no 
blow, advancing no cause, leaving 
no memorial. What mother is 
there whose heart is not light as 
she watches over her children and 
toils for their welfare unto the 
hours of the night, but who would 
fret and worry were she laid aside 
and commanded to rest ? Any 
servant of Christ would ten times 
rather face a hostile world even 
unto death in the declaration and 
defence of the Evangel, than be 
silenced and hear from afar the 

22 



The Sorrowful Way 

sound of the battle. Ah ! the mul- 
titude of victims who have ceased 
to labour or to resist^ who carry 
the cross in silence and patience 
along the Sorrowful Way with the 
Lord. 

It seems to sight an immense 
tragedy ; but is it certain that the 
lives of victims are wasted, — ren- 
dering no service to God's good 
cause, having no share in the vic- 
tory of the ages ? It is not given 
unto us to know which has done 
most for a household ; the strong 
man who won for them the meat 
which perisheth, by the sweat of 
his brow, or the gentle sufferer 
whose grace made clean their souls. 
We value highly the patriot whose 
brave words and stalwart heart 
23 



Companions of 

establishes righteousness in the 
market-place, but may assign too 
little effect to his fellow held in 
prison and in bonds. When some 
ancient tyranny comes crashing to 
the ground, the reward will be 
divided between the soldiers and 
the martyrs. When for thirty- 
three years Jesus did the will of 
God most diligently, the world 
saw an example of perfect law- 
keeping, and now the child and 
the man, the sinner and the saint, 
all men and women together stand 
before God complete in His per- 
fect obedience. So much He did 
for us and the eternal law in His 
lifetime. When for a single day 
Jesus meekly drank the cup His 
Father placed in His hands. He 
24 



The Sorrowful Way 



broke the dread power of Sin, that 
in Him we all might stand victo- 
rious. So much He did for us 
and the eternal law in His Passion. 
The Sorrowful Way became the 
Sacra Via of triumph wherein He 
walked in white embroidered with 
purple and was not without His 
spoils ; and the Cross to which He 
was nailed became His Throne. 



2S 



The Three Inti- 
mates of Jesus 



The Three Inti- 
mates of Tesus 



ALTHOUGH it may be 
given unto the devout 
heart to enter into certain of the 
Lord's sorrows there are others 
which even St. John or Mary of 
Bethany can only see from afar. 
When His fellow-townsmen would 
have taken His life, or Pharisees 
from Jerusalem dogged His steps, 
or the foolish multitude wearied 
of Him, or even Judas Iscariot 
sold his Master for thirty pieces 
of silver, the vexation is within 
our understanding. When Jesus 
29 



Companions of 

withdrew into the shadow of the 
ohve trees and threw Himself 
upon the ground, and besought 
His Father time after time for 
relief, and sweated great drops of 
blood in His agony, the tribula- 
tion is beyond what even chief 
saints can think. Every sensitive 
nature must have moments of 
utter horror, when the naked 
shape of some loathsome sin is 
forced upon their gaze and they 
cry out in their outraged purity. 
Yet the finest nature is callous 
beside the soul of Christ, and its 
purity is black beside His white- 
ness. When therefore the sin of 
the race into which He had been 
born, and whose lot He chose to 
share, came to a climax in Jesus' 
30 



The Sorrowful Way 

rejection and betrayal ; when our 
rebelHon, unbehef, cruelty ; our 
selfishness, pride, treachery ; our 
hatred, envy, falsehood — all the 
impieties of all the members of 
the Body — came upon Him, the 
Head, then His strength was 
nigh unto the breaking, and He 
shrank from the cup. 

If any one be called unto Geth- 
semane he must leave his nearest 
intimates and drink this cup alone. 
In the supreme temptations and 
sorrows of life the soul is isolated, 
and it were unbecoming and im- 
pious that any human eye should 
peep upon its agony. Yet even 
in that awful privacy, when God's 
hand leads us into the secret place 
of grief and curtains us with dark- 
31 



Companions of 



ness, we hunger for human sym- 
pathy, and we are disheartened if 
there be none to feel with us. 
One is comforted to know that 
near by a brother man is praying 
for him and waiting till haply 
he be delivered from his straits. 
Jesus was intensely human, and 
although He had spent many 
nights alone in this Garden in 
communion with the Father, He 
could not do without fellowship 
when He wrestled with tempta- 
tion. He called aside His three 
intimates in the college of Apostles 
and led them to the verge of the 
great mystery. They were chosen 
to be companions. Some came 
of their own accord into the Sor- 
rowful Way^ as that young man 
32 



The Sorrowful Way 

in the linen cloth, and Pilate's 
wife ; some were dragged into this 
Way by the violent hands of men, 
such were Simon the Cyrenian 
and the penitent thief ; some 
found themselves in the Way by 
the accident of circumstances — of 
them were the daughters of Jeru- 
salem and the Roman centurion 
— but certain were summoned di- 
rectly by the Lord to join Him 
at the very beginning of His Way, 
St. John and St. James, the two 
sons of Zebedee, and St. Peter. 

If the Apostles be taken to 
represent the Church, then the 
Three stand for that inner circle 
of choice souls who chiefly under- 
stand the mind of the Lord, who 
chiefly feel with His heart. One 
3 33 



Companions of 

was the type of vision, to whom 
the very heaven would yet be 
opened ; one was the type of ac- 
tion, who should declare Christ's 
name before councils ; one was 
the type of heroism, who first of 
the Apostolic band was to seal his 
testimony with his blood. They 
were the spectators of Christ's 
most wonderful works, the wit- 
nesses to His glory, the compan- 
ions of His Passion. When Jesus 
called back Jairus's little maid 
from the dead by His kindly 
word, they stood beside the couch. 
When the veil between the seen 
and unseen dissolved, and Jesus' 
garments shone white as no fuller 
on earth could white them, they 
were on the Mount ; when He 
34 



The Sorrowful Way 

drank the bitter cup of this world's 
sin they saw His hands tremble 
at the lifting thereof. He is your 
intimate to whom you turn in the 
solemn moments of life, and this 
was the honour set by Jesus on 
the three Apostles. 

Friendship can never be judged 
amid the ordinary circumstances of 
life — when we nod to our friend 
as he hurries past, when we are 
silent to him for months, when we 
chide him for some fault, when 
we give him careless advice. 
Friendship is proved when he is 
in the big black straits of life, and 
we remember nothing save our 
loyalty and his need. If three 
keep guard beside a man in his 
Gethsemane he is not to be pitied, 
35 



Companions of 

but the friends in whom Jesus put 
His faith watched for a while and 
then slept. The sleep of the 
Three is the shame of the Gos- 
pels, and there be some to whom 
the failure of St. John is sadder 
than the Crucifixion. The peo- 
ple left Jesus, they were ignorant ; 
the Pharisees slandered Him, they 
were bigots ; Judas betrayed Him, 
he was a knave ; Pilate crucified 
Him, he was a place hunter ; for 
each an excuse can be found by 
charity. If even the eight slept, 
they were not His intimates. 
" Betrayest thou the Son of Man 
with a kiss ? " was a keen reproach, 
but there was in it no complaint 
like this, " Could ye not watch 
with Me one hour ? " It was the 
36 



The Sorrowful Way 

cry of a wounded heart which in 
its hour of need had trusted its 
friends and been disappointed. 
When St. John could not keep 
vigil during his friend's hardest 
hour, although Jesus used no 
upbraidings but found a kindly 
reason in the weakness of the 
body, the nails of the Cross could 
not have been so bitter an afflic- 
tion. 

The Church will ever make her 
pious pilgrimage to the Garden 
of the Lord's Passion, and under 
the shadow of the olives she will 
ever learn the secret of sacrifice, 
for the Lord has not yet aban- 
doned Gethsemane. While His 
flesh and blood throughout the 
world and in all ages endure cruel 
37 



Companions of 

wrong and suffering, He cannot 
be indifferent or untouched. The 
far distance of heaven does not 
dull His ear to the crying of His 
kinsfolk, nor does the glory of 
the Father blind His eyes to the 
martyrdom on earth. Into His 
heart is all sorrow poured in 
virtue of His holv Incarnation 
and eternal Priesthood. The bat- 
tlefields soaking with the blood 
of His brethren ; the shameful 
wrongs of women and children ; 
the sufferings of the prisoners who 
have done nothing amiss ; the 
hunger and oppression of the 
poor ; the torture of the dumb 
animals, which have no appeal 
except to their Lord, are His 
present Gethsemane. His is an 
38 



The Sorrowful Way 

eternal passion, and a cup still 
refilled from day to day. 

With the Lord is joined in this 
ministry of sympathy a band of 
companions who are the flower of 
the Church, and who have not 
slept on their watch. They are 
His chosen friends, and belong to 
all times and creeds and callings 
and countries — being as different 
one from another as St. John was 
from St. Peter, and finding their 
unity in the vision of the Master 
beneath the olives with His agon- 
ised prayer and His sweat of blood. 
Some are missionaries of the Lord, 
who bore the Cross in their hearts 
rather than in their hands, from 
St. Paul who poured out life as a 
drink oflfering, and Xavier, who 
39 



Companions of 



stretched out his hands to the East 
and prayed for more sufferings — 
unto that pure spirit Brainerd, who 
grasped for multitudes of souls 
among his loved Red Indians, and 
Livingstone, who in his patience 
and charity carried the light of the 
Divine Love into the dark places 
of the earth. Some are lovers of 
their fellow men, such as that 
heroic monk, who, by an impulse 
of sacrifice, brought to an end the 
gladiatorial conflicts, and St. Vin- 
cent de Paul, with his devotion to 
the slaves of the galleys ; such as 
Howard, who reformed the prisons 
of Europe, and Elizabeth Fry, who 
carried the Evangel to the pris- 
oners. Some are rather deliver- 
ers and reformers and patriots and 
40 



The Sorrowful Way 

martyrs, like John Huss and Hugh 
Latimer and Lord William Rus- 
sell, and that modern knight-errant. 
General Gordon. They kept their 
vigil carefully, and drank Christ's 
cup without complaining, and filled 
up what remained of His sufferings 
for the salvation of the world. 

What the Lord's companions 
have suffered with Him cannot be 
imagined by those of us who are 
of the outer circle. Theirs was 
not a passing feeling of kindly pity, 
nor the service of a few empty 
hours. They tasted the actual 
pain of the victims ; they surren- 
dered the tenderest joys of life ; they 
strained their very reason in the 
keenness of their sympathy ; they 
counted not their life dear in their 
41 



Companions of 



devotion. The world's sorrow 
has so overcome certain pious and 
sensitive natures that in their meas- 
ure they also have besought God 
that the cup might pass. This 
has been their trial and this has 
been their strength. In this se- 
cret fellowship with the Man of 
Sorrows they were thoroughly 
cleansed from that unconscious 
callousness of heart which affords 
an inglorious security against the 
appeal of suffering, and that secret 
taint of selfishness which, as by an 
instinct safeguards our personal 
interests. It is in this travail of 
soul over the world that saints are 
formed and reach the heights of 
holiness : it is in this shadow that 
pious hearts are led into the mys- 
42 



The Sorrowful Way 

teries of the soul and into the 
secret things of God. The agonies 
of life grow luminous and beautiful 
to those who are taken apart and 
who keep watch with the Lord. 

It is not by the way of learning 
but by the way of suffering that 
we come unto knowledge, and he 
was right who, being asked how 
he came to know so much, pointed 
to the crucifix. They who sail 
on the surface of a summer sea 
gain no treasures, but they who, 
weighed down with sorrow, fear 
not to sound the depths, return 
to the light with pearls in their 
hands. One vigil in Gethsemane 
with Christ teaches more than can 
be heard in all the synagogues, 
than all we gather in our pleasant 
43 



The Sorrowful Way 



days. We learn at last to say, 
"Thy will be done/' and to make 
our final surrender ; and if it be 
that hearts pass through misery's 
presses, heaven is already bending 
over us in benediction, and the 
angels of God are making haste 
to be our ministers. 



44 



The Owner of 
Gethsemane 



45 



The Owner of 
Gethsemane 

AMONG the vivid scenes of 
our Lord's life His arrest 
in the Garden of Gethsemane is 
the most weird, and various cir- 
cumstances fascinate the imagina- 
tion. The moon filled the open 
glades with silver light, but under- 
neath the trees the darkness hung 
heavy. Within an olive grove the 
Apostles lay huddled in a heap 
upon the ground, and a short dis- 
tance farther the Lord prays alone. 
The stillness of the Garden is cut 
by a thrice repeated cry of agony, 
47 



Companions of 

but no sound comes from the guilty 
city which lies in sleep, and in the 
awful light of judgment. Jesus 
wakes His friends and gathers 
them round Him in the shadows. 
A band of soldiers led by a guide 
comes cautiously up the open 
way ; they peer into the gloom 
beneath the trees, flashing light 
from their lanterns ; the Master 
comes forth undismayed, and 
Judas kisses Him in token that 
this is the man. There is a con- 
fusion of figures and clashing of 
arms, during which St. Peter 
strikes with the sword, and then 
Jesus is led away a prisoner, 
through the Garden where, night 
after night. He had spoken with 
God. 

48 



The Sorrowful Way 



Before the excited company — 
among whom Jesus alone pos- 
sessed his soul — had escaped 
from among the trees with their 
mysterious shadows, some one, 
glancing fearfully round, discovers 
that they are followed. A figure 
in pure white flits among the trees, 
appearing and disappearing, as if 
keeping watch and yet desiring 
to be unnoticed. As one after 
another catches sight of this 
ghostly attendant a vague fear 
spreads through the band. It 
was an eerie expedition and every 
incident was strange. They had 
been gathered suddenly at the 
Temple and set out under secret 
orders. They had crept through 
the midnight streets of Jerusalem 

4 49 



Companions of 

like thieves, guarding against the 
rattle of arms and speaking each 
man with his neighbour in a 
whisper. They were led by a 
stranger, who seemed ill at ease 
and half repentant of his work. 
They were going to lay hands 
on Jesus, and round this Man 
there gathered a certain inde- 
scribable divinity. They trembled 
in the silence and moonlight of 
the Mount of Olives ; and at the 
sight of Jesus coming out from 
the trees, and looking at them 
with those eyes, some strong men 
had fallen to the ground. They 
had come on ill-omened work, 
and now what meant this sight 
as if a corpse had risen from the 
dead to be a sign to them ? 
so 



The Sorrowful Way 



Some soldiers, braver than their 
fellows, spring suddenly aside 
and catch the whiteness, to find 
the under garment of a man left 
in their grasp, while its owner — 
his naked body glistening in the 
light — plunges into the wood and 
vanishes. 

Amid the dramatic events which 
were to fill the next twelve hours 
this sHght incident would be soon 
crushed out of the soldiers' minds, 
but it was treasured by one spec- 
tator, and at last found its place 
in the history of the Passion. No 
one in the Gospels made so brief 
and strange an appearance, a mere 
flash of white from darkness to 
darkness, and our curiosity is fired. 
Can this young man be identified, 
SI 



Companions of 



who, being no Apostle and having 
no invitation to the Garden, rose 
from his bed and haunted the very 
place where Jesus was praying ? — 
who did not lose heart of a sudden 
and forsake his friend when even 
St. John and St. Peter had es- 
caped for their lives ; who could 
not resist the attraction of love 
and the desire to be with Jesus 
whithersoever He went ; who 
hung upon the outskirts of the 
band and only fled when rough 
hands woke him into self-con- 
sciousness and outraged his mod- 
esty. This was not a coward, else 
he had gone with the Apostles : 
he was rather a lover and a 
recluse. 

Was there any one among Jesus' 
52 



The Sorrowful Way- 



private friends who was likely to 
have been present that night of 
his own part, because he knew 
Jesus would be in the Garden, 
and because he also knew every 
recess of the Garden ? What 
about the owner of Gethsemane ? 
We read in the Gospels that after 
Jesus had spoken with the people 
in the Temple, and they had gone 
every one to his own house, He 
left the hot, noisy, restless city 
and spent the night on the Mount 
of Olives. Jesus had various 
homes, beneath whose kindly roof 
He could rest, but He loved the 
open air, and so it came to pass 
that He had the use of two gar- 
dens. One was that in which He 
slept well after the battle had been 
53 



Companions of 



fought, and the owner thereof was 
Joseph of Arimathaea. The other 
was that which was an ever ready 
and welcome sanctuary for the 
Lord when He was worn out and 
sick at heart through the gain- 
saying and vain ambitions of men, 
and the owner thereof, was it not 
a certain young man ? 

If His nation was misled, and 
rejected Christ, how many were 
the kindnesses He received of His 
friends, and none could have been 
more grateful than the affording 
of this garden. It is good to feed 
them that are ready to perish and 
to send light to them that sit in 
darkness, but finer gifts still re- 
main. Bread is good and knowl- 
edge is better, but best of all is 
54 



The Sorrowful Way 

peace, and the place of quietness 
has ever been and ever will be a gar- 
den. What wiser and kindlier gift 
could any one make to his brethren 
who are compelled to live amid the 
pressure and publicity of the city, 
where one is hardly allowed to 
possess his own soul, and oft-times 
has not a solitary place wherein 
to weep, than a sheltered place 
with trees and flowers ? Temp- 
tations could be overcome and 
perplexities would unravel them- 
selves and sorrows be comforted 
and the will of God grow lumin- 
ous where the noise of the city is 
stilled and heaven is near. One 
day this young man, having come 
in from the Mount of Olives to 
hear his friend speak in the Tem- 
SS 



Companions of 



pie, and standing in his shyness 
on the edge of the crowd, saw 
even at that distance the weariness 
on Jesus' face, and there came to 
him a gracious inspiration. When 
the crowd, discussing and wrang- 
ling, had dispersed, and the last 
scribe had left Jesus alone, His 
friend approached and made a sim- 
ple request that the Master would 
come with him. They passed 
swiftly through the streets, where 
the people stood in groups, and 
up the side of Olivet in silence — 
for they were not mere acquaint- 
ances who are obliged to talk. 
They came at last into the gar- 
den and stood in its heart, and 
the young man found words to 
plead that if Jesus counted him 
56 



The Sorrowful Way 

a friend. He would make this 
place His own. So it came to 
pass that if for Jesus there was 
no room in palaces nor great 
men's houses He had His home, 
the fairest on earth, beside which 
carved ceilings and many coloured 
curtains are less than nothing and 
vanity ; where the morning light 
turned the grey olive leaves into 
silver and the birds settling down 
into their nests at evening spoke 
of their Father's care ; where the 
gentle rustling among the leaves 
at noon was as the movements of 
the Divine Spirit, and the lilies 
in the glades bore witness to the 
gratuitous magnificence of God. 
There are friends who can respect 
one another's silence, and I see 
57 



Companions of 



that gentle gardener going about 
his work in quietness while Jesus 
meditated and prayed apart ; yet 
sometimes he would catch the 
look on Jesus' face, or a word 
falling from His lips, which was 
more to him than all his harvests. 
For any one to hear Jesus say 
Father in Gethsemane was worth 
a world's ransom. And to this 
man it may have been given to 
hear the mediatorial prayer St. 
John lost, and to preserve it for 
the Church. He doeth shrewd 
business who lendeth home or 
land to Christ, or best of all his 
heart, for it is the way of our 
Master to pay tribute not in 
silver or gold but in the spiritual 
treasures which last for ever. For- 
58 



The Sorrowful Way 

tunate is that man who possesses 
the very ground on which a battle 
for freedom was fought, who has 
in his library the Bible which is 
stained with a martyr's blood, or 
the manuscript of Wordsworth's 
Ode on Immortality ; but whose 
good fortune is to be compared 
with his to whom belonged Geth- 
semane, where the Lord endured 
His bitter Passion and gained 
unto Himself the victory? 

Must we know him only as a 
certain young man ? Is it im- 
possible to call him by name, to 
discover him in other offices of 
friendship ? Just over the sum- 
mit of Olivet, and but a short 
distance from Gethsemane, was 
Bethany where Martha and Mary 
59 



Companions of 

lived with their brother Lazarus. 
It was from their house Jesus 
went forth each morning in Pas- 
sion Week till the last, to it He 
returned after the toil of the day. 
Was there no connection between 
the home of Bethany and the 
Garden of Gethsemane ? Could 
Jesus have had two friends so 
devoted and so loving, living so 
near and so like one another as 
Mary's brother and this young 
man? Does not this faithful, re- 
tiring, mystical form, suggest the 
character of Lazarus ? Over Laz- 
arus hung the shadow of a terrible 
disease, for he was the son of 
Simon the leper, for him there 
could be no marriage or family 
joys. An only brother, he lived 
60 



The Sorrowful Way 

with his sisters in that pathetic 
affection which is deepened by a 
common sorrow. Unto him had 
been vouchsafed an awful experi- 
ence, since this man had lain four 
days under the power of death 
and then come back into the 
light of day and the affairs of 
human life. None love so in- 
tensely as those hidden and 
reserved natures, and one can 
understand that the heart of Laz- 
arus was given to Jesus as the 
kindhest of dumb animals is de- 
voted to its master. Each even- 
ing, as we suppose, he waited 
anxiously, going often to the brow 
of Olivet, till Jesus returned from 
Jerusalem, and his heart failed 
him when Jesus came not on 
6i 



Companions of 

Passion Night. He lay down 
upon his bed but could not sleep ; 
he arose and went where he ex- 
pected the Master to be: so he 
was found clad in a linen gar- 
ment, following Him whom he 
loved in the shadows of Geth- 
semane. For this fond soul was 
like unto the bride in the Song 
of Songs : " By night on my bed 
I sought him whom my soul 
loveth ; I sought him, but I found 
him not. I will rise now and go 
about. ... I will seek him whom 
my soul loveth." 

Lazarus is the type of them 
whom God has called aside and 
made to walk in a solitary way ; 
who are taken into secret places 
and see strange sights. With the 
62 



The Sorrowful Way 

light-hearted gaiety of life and its 
practical methods of speech and 
action they can have no part, for 
life has been to them a sacred 
mystery. The ordinary forms of 
thought and the conventions of 
society cannot contain their ex- 
perience, for what they know is 
beyond our present language and 
our prosaic rules. Like Dante 
they have been in hell ; like St. 
Paul they have been in the third 
heaven ; and they have heard 
things which it is not lawful to 
utter. They follow Jesus beneath 
the trees of Gethsemane, par- 
takers of His love and travail. 
We, of the multitude, are startled 
by those separate souls and re- 
gard them with apprehension. 
63 



Companions of 

What is the meaning of this far- 
away look in their eyes, this awe- 
struck accent in their speech, this 
preference of loneliness? Some- 
times we grow irritable, and de- 
mand that they should declare 
themselves, who they are, what 
they are thinking, why they so 
carry themselves. We lay rough 
hands upon them, and would tear 
off the pure covering of their 
souls ; whereupon they elude us 
and hide themselves in the pro- 
tecting darkness of Gethsemane, 
where we know not the ways. 
It were wiser for us to respect 
their reserve and give no sign 
that they are seen. It is enough 
for us to carry the Lord with us 
in creeds and sacraments, along 
64 



The Sorrowful Way 

the beaten road and where the 
Hght is shining ; let us leave to 
them the darkness and the loneli- 
ness which are to such disciples 
as home. Nor let us boast, for 
if we hold the Master by many 
outward symbols they carry Him 
in their hearts, who, possessing 
Gethsemane, have also possessed 
Gethsemane's Lord. 



5 6s 



The Bearer of 
Christ's Cross 



67 



The Bearer of 
Christ's Cross 



WHEN a sudden remem- 
brance of Christ's faithful 
love rises and overcomes our 
heart, we regard with wistful 
envy those disciples who rendered 
personal service to the Lord dur- 
ing the days of His humiliation. 
Joseph, who provided a home for 
Mary and the Holy Child ; 
Mary, who discharged for His 
infancy the tenderest offices of 
love ; the devoted women who 
ministered to Him of their sub- 
stance ; the owner of Gethsemane, 
who reserved to Jesus a quiet 
69 



Companions of 



place where He might suffer and 
pray ; the goodman who lent the 
Upper Room for the great Pass- 
over; Joseph of Arimathaea, who 
would not see Jesus laid in a 
malefactor's grave ; the mourn- 
ers who wrapt His body in 
spices and fair white linen — were 
one and all highly favoured, be- 
side whom the great and mighty 
personages of that day are not to 
be mentioned. And yet one would 
rather have chosen to be Simon 
the Cyrenian, because he rendered 
unto Jesus a still more timely and 
intimate service. 

They were, one and all, His 
true and kindly friends, who saw 
Him homeless and took Him in, 
who saw Him athirst and gave 
70 



The Sorrowful Way 

Him drink, who saw Him neg- 
lected and honoured Him. They 
did well, and they did not miss 
their opportunity ; they lightened 
Christ's load and comforted Christ's 
heart, but they did not stand in 
Christ's place. Had they withheld 
their hand His lot would have been 
harder, but He had still continued 
on His way. Once, however, the 
Lord was in such sore straits that 
His body failed Him and He was 
helpless. His mysterious agony 
in Gethsemane, His night-long 
trials. His cruel scourgings, His 
soul's sorrow had sapped for the 
time even His superb strength ; 
and although He was willing to 
die upon the cross, it seemed likely 
that He would not be able to carry 
71 



Companions of 

it to Calvary. Art, with her quick 
eye for a symbolic situation, has 
represented Him crushed unto the 
ground beneath the burden of the 
cross. It was at this moment a 
man came to His aid. When the 
two single beams are lifted from the 
Lord's bleeding shoulders and laid 
on the sturdy Cyrenian, Simon was 
not Jesus' servant nor His com- 
forter. This man was what none 
other ever had been or ever would 
be in all the history of the Lord's 
Passion : he became for a brief 
space the substitute of Jesus. 
\ Simon came that morning into 
Jerusalem unconscious of the tragedy 
\ of life. All the year this man, 
amid the labours and trials of 
ordinary life, had looked forward 
72 



The Sorrowful Way 



and longed, like every loyal Jew, 
for the high Passover Feast. He 
came up with a goodly company 
along the ways of the Holy Land, 
and it might well be that the 
Cyrenian passed the place where 
Jesus had taken His disciples aside, 
and was telling them concerning 
His Passion. As a countryman 
Simon could not bear the crush 
and heat of the city, and, like unto 
the Master Himself, this Cyrenian 
was guest with friends in some 
neighbouring village. When Jesus 
went to the Garden of Gethsemane 
and wrestled in sore agony under 
the olive-trees, Simon lay down to 
rest and slept quietly. The morn- 
ing light which saw Jesus dragged 
from palace to court with con- 
73 



Companions of 



tumely and cruelty wakened Si- 
mon with its kindly rays, and the 
fresh, sweet air touched his face as 
with God's benediction. He left 
the simple home filled with Pass- 
over gladness, and took his way 
to the sacred city through the 
spring flowers and the singing of 
the birds. And as he travelled 
Simon lifted his head and rejoiced 
because the sun was shining in its 
glory on the Temple of God. 

Are there not times when, like 
Simon the Cyrenian, we live at ease 
and reck not of the world's trag- 
edy ? We bid our household a 
good-morning as we meet after the 
darkness of the night has fled, and 
as the shadows begin to gather we 
bid one another a good-night — 
74 



The Sorrowful Way 

the day beginning and closing for 
us in peace. God has been pleased 
to grant us health of body, success 
to labour, wealth of family love, 
and many priceless treasures of this 
life. Our faith is also quite un- 
troubled, and as we look forward 
we see afar the city whose gates 
are one pearl, where is the Throne 
of God and of the Lamb. We 
do not despise, because we cannot 
even imagine the affliction of those 
who have been defeated and broken, 
who are lonely and bereaved, who 
look into black darkness and fear 
that God has forsaken them. 

Simon became of a sudden a 
witness of the tragedy of life when 
he was caught in the crowd which 
accompanied Jesus to Calvary. 
75 



Companions of . 

Through the dense, struggling, 
excited mass of life the heavily- 
built countryman forced himself 
with insistent body till he came to 
the edge of the procession. First 
there were soldiers, and last there 
were soldiers. Soldiers beat back 
the human pressure on either side. 
Within the wall of mail two thieves 
carried their crosses to the place 
of execution, and after them fol- 
lowed another, also with His cross. 
It was His name which passed 
from lip to lip ; it was this Man 
every one pressed to see. From 
his vantage Simon could peer in 
and get sight of Jesus — could 
catch the weariness of His face, 
and hear His panting breath as 
He trembled beneath the cross. 
76 



The Sorrowful Way 



An irresistible curiosity seized him : 
he would see the end of this affair. 
Simon kept step with the soldiers, 
and from time to time he leant 
forward to look at Jesus. Did 
the contrast between the olive gar- 
dens, with their fretted sunlight, 
and the steaming, echoing streets, 
through which the Holiest was 
led in pain and shame, awaken this 
spectator s imagination ? There, 
in his place outside, did he get a 
glimpse for an instant into the 
tears of things which lay so near 
to its joy on that spring day, when 
the fields were green and the birds 
were singing, and the Lord of 
them all was being tortured unto 
death ? 

What of ourselves, all bystand- 
77 



Companions of 

ers in the Sorrowful Way ? Does 
the veil drop from our eyes at a 
time, and is our heart melted 
within us, when, in the midst of 
business, as we hurry to and fro, 
a simple funeral passes with a few 
mourners, and reminds us that the 
bread-winner or the house-mother 
is gone ? When on some great 
occasion the people keep holiday, 
with the sound of music and dan- 
cing, and we light upon a widow 
in her black ? When in the pub- 
lic print one reads of some sicken- 
ing outrage, whereby the light and 
honour of a family have been 
taken away, for whom there is now 
left no joy, no redress this side the 
grave? Everywhere, amid the 
bustle and gaiety of life, one is 
78 



The Sorrowful Way 

touched by its underlying and 
far-reaching sorrow, as in a sweet 
country scene, where thinking of 
nothing but running water and 
spreading trees and wild roses and 
ripening corn, he comes of a sud- 
den on a grave-yard, and entering, 
finds a newly-made grave with a 
young child's name on the stone. 

Simon was forcibly taken into the 
heart of the tragedy. It was the 
merest accident, we should say, 
that he was selected ; it might 
have been any other person in the 
crowd. They dare not lay hands 
on a great person to be Christ's 
cross-bearer, lest he should have 
them scourged for the insult. No 
priest in his high estate would con- 
descend to touch the accursed tree 
79 



Companions of 



with his finger-tips. For a Roman 
soldier it had been a loathsome 
degradation. The guard looked 
round, and they saw Simon. His 
prominence and his bulk, perhaps 
an unconscious sympathy grow- 
ing on his face, attracted their eye. 
Here was a fellow nature had in- 
tended to be a carrier of loads, a 
common man who could make no 
complaint, a simpleton who had 
pity on an outcast. So it came to 
pass that, without more ado, and 
before Simon knew what had hap- 
pened, he was dragged out from 
among the people, and the cross 
was on his shoulders, and he was 
walking beside Jesus to Calvary. 
Oh, good fortune of the Cyrenian 
to have a stout body and to be 
80 



The Sorrowful Way 



born a countryman and to carry a 
kindly heart, for it has won him 
an honour denied to kings and 
conquerors. 

Some day it may happen that, 
having made his visit to our 
neighbours. Death will have a 
mind to call on us, and we shall 
go softly about our changed 
house in sad amazement. Or a 
fleecy cloud, which only lent a 
pleasing softness to the arch of 
blue, will suddenly gather into a 
thunder-cloud and lay desolate 
our golden cornfields, and our 
prosperity will be no more. Or 
a fine passage from the Prophets, 
whose literary grace and felicitous 
imagery we have often tasted, 
will fling aside its embroidered 
6 8i 



Companions of 



cloak and spring upon us, grip- 
ping our conscience and heart with 
iron hand. We shall be taken 
from the midst of the multitude, 
among which we were hidden, 
and the cross we had seen on 
others' shoulders shall rest on our 
own. Before, we had marched 
along on the outskirts of life ; 
now, we are brought into its- 
secret place, where Jesus travelleth 
with His companions along the 
Sorrowful Way to fulfil the Will 
of God. 

In the heart of the tragedy 
Simon met with Jesus. Many per- 
sons had interviews with Jesus, 
but none was so favoured as this 
Cyrenian, for they journeyed to- 
gether within an iron wall. No 
82 



The Sorrowful Way- 
man could interrupt or annoy, 
neither priest nor people ; they 
were so close together that the 
cross would seem to be upon 
them both, and would gain them 
the immunity of the dying — who 
are left alone. What Jesus saidj 
to His substitute in the passage \ 
to Calvary, Simon never told, ^ 
and if he had, then ought the 
cross to have been laid once 
more on him, with no Jesus by 
his side. That Jesus spoke to 
him as He did to few in all His 
ministry there can be no doubt, 
since no one could render Jesus 
the least service without being 
instantly repaid, and this man 
succoured Him in His dire ex- 
tremity. When a single woman 
83 



Companions of 

repaired the neglect of Simon 
the Pharisee, the Lord must 
needs send her into peace. If 
a Samaritan drew Him water 
from the well in the heat of 
the day, He gave her to drink 
of the water of life. Let Mary 
of Bethany anticipate the crown 
of thorns with her spikenard, 
and the Master ordered that this 
deed be told wherever the Gospel 
went. Does some one pluck out 
the thorns, and bind a napkin 
tenderly round the wounded head ? 
Behold the Lord cannot leave the 
tomb without folding up that 
napkin and laying it in a place 
by itself, in token of His grati- 
tude. With what kindness He 
must have spoken to His cross- 
84 



The Sorrowful Way 

bearer as they went together to j 
Calvary under one cross and I 
common disgrace ! For a short \ 
while this man carried the load of 
wood, and in return Jesus carried 
his sin and that of his children 
after him ; for by the time this 
Gospel was given unto the world 
Simon is known as the head of 
a distinguished Christian house, 
a man honoured in his sons, the 
father of Alexander and Rufus. 
Within the iron bands of afflic- 
tion, and alone with the Re- 
deemer, one learns more secrets 
and gathers richer treasures than 
in a lifetime of ease and gaiety. 
When Simon came that morning 
to Jerusalem there was no cross 
on Mount Calvary, and when 
35 



The Sorrowful Way 

he returned to his country home 
in the evening there was no cross 
again. Nothing of the great 
tragedy could be seen save the 
trampled grass and a drop or two 
of blood ; but in the meanwhile 
Jesus had accomplished the de- 
liverance of the world, and Simon 
the Cyrenian had carried the 
Lord's cross. 



86 



A Noble Lady 



87 



A Noble Lady 

IT is characteristic of the 
Gospels to describe at length, 
and with wealth of detail, the 
effect of Jesus on the " common 
people " till we see the multitude 
crowding the lake shore to hear 
Him, sitting in companies on the 
grass, pressing into private houses, 
filling the temple courts ; a flow- 
ing, buoyant tide of life. They 
are amazed, enthusiastic, per- 
plexed, furious before our eyes. 
There they are so carried with 
admiration that they would fain 
make Jesus a king ; here they are 
89 



Companions of 

so swayed by national prejudice 
that they send Him to the cross ; 
while a few choice souls separate 
themselves from the mass to 
follow Him for ever. One then 
bethinks himself of those who are 
not seen in public places and do 
not stand in crowds, who main- 
tain a studied reserve, and will 
not parade their feelings. Did 
the class who are not weary nor 
heavy-laden, who are cushioned 
round with ease and live in shel- 
tered places, ever hear of Jesus, 
and what did they think of Him ? 
Humble women, after the fashion 
of Mary of Bethany and her 
sister Martha, captivated by His 
spiritual attractions, gave Him 
welcome not only in their cottages 
90 



The Sorrowful Way 

but also in their hearts. Did the 
great ladies of the day, to whom 
spikenard was a common thing, 
do homage to the Lord ? 

Whatever may have been the 
case in that age, there has been 
no other since in which Jesus as 
He passed on His way has not 
called women forth from every 
circumstance of rank and luxury 
to carry His hard cross. They 
were not all slaves and working 
women who died in the Roman 
persecutions, for if Blandina was 
a slave girl, Perpetua was a patri- 
cian. St. Theresa, the type of 
mystical passion, was a noble's 
daughter, and St. Elizabeth of 
Hungary, who gave herself to 
works of charity and the nursing 
91 



Companions of 

of loathsome diseases, was a 
queen. French women of high 
rank sheltered the Huguenot pas- 
tors in their straits, and Samuel 
Rutherford from his prison writes 
to the wives of Scots lords who 
had taken the covenant. Last 
century. Lady Huntingdon de- 
voted herself and her substance 
to the revival of religion in Eng- 
land ; and in the middle of this 
century, the Duchess of Gordon 
gave herself to the same work in 
Scotland. The voice of Jesus 
has penetrated into castles, and 
His attraction has overcome the 
pride of seclusion and the power 
of this present world. When the 
Sorrowful Way lay at their door, 
delicate and fastidious women 
92 



The Sorrowful Way 



have arisen and passed into it, 
that they might follow Christ. 

His own age was no exception, 
nor has He done more by His 
Evangel than by His Presence, 
for He did touch the only high 
society of His land. It was the 
misfortune of Galilee to have for 
its tetrarch Herod Antipas, to 
whom religion was a superstition 
and virtue an offence. Could 
there be any more unlikely place 
for Jesus' word than in that de- 
cadent circle, where a dancing- 
girl won a prophet's head for her 
reward and a wanton ruled the 
king ? Jesus had certainly no 
speech with Herod himself, al- 
though He sent him the one con- 
temptuous word which passed 
93 



Companions of 



His lips, and He was once asked 
to perform miracles to please 
Herod and his courtiers, as if He 
had been some common magician. 
While that miserable court was 
flaunting its moral disgrace in the 
face of the Jewish world, a hand- 
ful of godly women, amid many 
hindrances doubtless and much 
scorn, counted it an honour to 
support Jesus in His prophetical 
work, of whom one name has 
been preserved — Joanna, the wife 
of Chusa, Herod's steward. 

One circle in the land was still 
more exclusive, to which Jesus 
could have no direct access. Like 
the English in India, the Romans 
lived apart from the Jews — 
divided in blood, in religion, in 
94 



The Sorrowful Way 



pride — conquerors among the 
conquered. There seems, on first 
sight, no common ground where 
this Prophet and a Roman could 
meet. If some official heard of 
Jesus as he dealt with public af- 
fairs there was little to catch his 
attention. Jesus would only be to 
him as an Indian fakir of local 
sanctity to an English magistrate. 
As for the Roman's wife, in her 
proud isolation one would not 
expect her ever to hear His name 
or know that Jesus lived. How 
persuasive, therefDre, must have 
been our Master's teaching, how 
convincing His character, how 
mysterious His influence, that 
Jesus was known in the palace 
of the Roman procurator, and 
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Companions of 



had won for His friend Procula, 
Pilate's wife. 

It is true that the mysterious 
attraction of the Jews had caught 
the jaded imagination of the grand 
Roman ladies, and it may be that 
Procula was a proselyte, but in 
the circumstances of fierce hostility 
between her husband and the 
Jews it was not likely. One rather 
imagines that in the weariness of 
her exile she had given ear to the 
talk of a Jewish maid, and that 
from the midst of petty gossip the 
story of Jesus had emerged and 
caught Procula's ear. His sudden 
appearance in Jewish life, His 
gracious words. His marvellous 
works. His winsome personality. 
His tender compassion, appealed 
96 



The Sorrowful Way 

to her womanly nature. The 
hardship of His lot, the unselfish- 
ness of His aims, the opposition 
of the Pharisees, the schemes of 
the priests, the dangers which en- 
compassed Him, completed the 
attraction. From a single inci- 
dent or even a dozen words a 
sympathetic and sensitive person 
can estimate and approve a char- 
acter. Whether her informant 
understood the situation or not it 
was clear as day to Procula. It 
was one of the repeated tragedies 
of life, a gentle soul full of spir- 
itual visions and beautiful deeds, 
hated and persecuted by bigotry 
and fanaticism. Curiosity passed 
into interest and ended in devo- 
tion, till she hungered for news of 
7 97 



Companions of 

Jesus, and devoured greedily His 
every word or deed. Between 
Jesus and Procula there grew up 
a mystical friendship which was 
quite independent of sight, and 
has been repeated in all the ages, 
whenever a fine nature discovers 
in the Master the perfection it 
has ever sought, and is satisfied. 
As the plot thickened round the 
Lord, and His enemies waxed in 
rage, this secret friend shared the 
Lord's Passion, till on the night 
of His betrayal, when He was 
dragged through Jerusalem, she 
was with Him in her dreams. 
While apostles slept her heart 
kept watch, and in the early 
morning light when Jesus stood 
before the Roman judge, with 
98 



The Sorrowful Way 

none of all whom He had helped 
to say one word for Him, Procula, 
with the vision of the night still 
upon her soul, sent a message to 
her husband and interceded that 
he should do no harm to a right- 
eous man. 

One has no sooner realised the 
character of Procula than he must 
have a profound sympathy with 
Pilate's wife, and a keen imagina- 
tion of her history. What schem- 
ing, heartless mother sold such a 
daughter to this selfish, worthless 
noble? What a disillusionment 
and profanation of the most sacred 
mystery of life for this woman to 
find herself united to a man she 
could not honour nor respect. 
What agonies of shame and con- 
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Companions of 

tempt must have been Procula's 
lot as the character of her husband 
opened up before her eyes — his 
watchful self-regard, his scheming 
ambition, his calculated cruelty, 
his cowardly cunning. When a 
woman of noble temper is called 
to this experience, she tastes the 
very dregs of humiliation, and 
carries the heaviest cross that can 
be laid on a woman's soul. As 
the daughters of Jerusalem, their 
faces aged with care and their 
hands worn with labour, saw 
Pilate's wife carried past in her 
litter, the flash of the gems on her 
white hands, and the pride of 
her patrician face, they would envy 
Procula in her luxury and high 
estate, and could never guess 

lOO 



The Sorrowful Way 



that she would have exchanged 
with the poorest woman wedded 
to an honest man. 

The woman, whose lot one 
pities most, is not the lonely 
heart which has missed the prize 
of life, nor the trustful one who 
has been betrayed, nor the victim 
whose sufferings are known to 
all, nor the drudge whose life is 
beaten down by toil. They have 
their burden, but it is in each case 
lighter than hers whose soul is 
proud, and whose husband main- 
tains her in material comfort and 
serves her with fair words, who 
may even after a fashion respect 
and love her, but who is utterly 
selfish and unprincipled. Other 
women of lower rank and coarser 



JOI 



Companions of 



nature may ventilate their griev- 
ance and find relief. Unto this 
woman it is not allowed to com- 
plain or expose her sorrow : her 
traditions and pride compel her 
to silence and concealment. Per- 
haps the bravest sufferer in the 
world is a pure and delicate woman 
who is gay and smiles with a 
shamed and tortured heart. 

Unto Procula was given a noble 
service to stand in the shadow and 
to be her husband's saviour. No 
one, until the end of all things, 
will ever know what men have 
owed unto women of spiritual in- 
stincts and faithful hearts. The 
man has played his part in the 
open amid the public praise or 
blame, and few guess how he was 

I02 



The Sorrowful Way 

either inspired or restrained by 
a woman. Behind St. John was 
his mother Salome, behind Pilate 
was his wife Procula. We know 
what good one man did ; we do 
not know who moved him. We 
know what evil another man did ; 
we do not know what evil a woman 
hindered. But we do know that 
in the great event and moral crisis 
of Pilate's life Procula pleaded for 
righteousness and Christ and al- 
most had her way. 

Procula failed that day before 
the force of circumstances and 
Pilate's lean heart, and it doubt- 
less seemed to her as if her cup 
of mortification were full when her 
husband and a Roman Governor 
sent Jesus of Nazareth to the 
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Companions of 



cross. The guilt was hers, too, 
for she was his wife, and she would 
share the punishment which was 
sure to come. She accepted her 
lot, and when Pilate reaped what 
he had sown Procula went into 
exile with him. As she had been 
his best adviser in the days of his 
power, so this gentle and honour- 
able woman would be his one 
comforter in the days of his ad- 
versity. It pleases one to believe 
that the evangelist of Pilate's home 
spake not in vain at last, and that 
Jesus' prayer for His murderers 
covered Pontius Pilate. One day 
the trial of that spring morning in 
Jerusalem will be repeated, with 
a certain transposition of judge 
and prisoner. Then Pilate was 
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The Sorrowful Way 

on the judgment seat and Jesus 
was at the bar ; now Christ is on 
the throne of His glory and Pilate 
awaits sentence. Procula alone of 
the three has the same honour- 
able place. Once she interceded 
with her husband for Jesus when 
His people called for His death 
and His friends were silent through 
fear. Again she pleads, but now 
it is for her repentant husband, 
and it is with Him who has all 
power in heaven and earth ; and 
though she failed with Pilate for 
Jesus she will surely succeed with 
Christ for Pilate, and unto her, as 
to many another lifelong martyr, 
will be given for a recompense of 
reward her husband's soul. 

105 



The Daughters 
of Jerusalem 



107 



The Daughters 
of Jerusalem 



ONE of the most powerful 
works of realistic art is 
Christ before Pilate, and Mun- 
kacsy has brought out with much 
felicity, that of all persons present, 
only two had any sympathy with 
the Master. Pontius Pilate on 
his judgment-seat is calculating 
with his fingers, as if it were a 
sum of arithmetic, the chances of 
action, — whether it would be ex- 
pedient to acquit or condemn the 
prisoner. Two aged students of 
the law are discussing a fine point 
109 



Companions of 



— whether, say, the Messiah could 
come out of Nazareth, or whether 
He would work miracles on the 
Sabbath. An elder of the people, 
increased in goods and swollen 
with pride, leans back in his seat 
and eyes Jesus with contempt, 
appraising at its money value His 
simple garment. One scribe, more 
thoughtful and candid than his 
fellows, is not certain about the 
situation, and is asking himself 
whether this man be really a 
blasphemer as they had concluded, 
or a prophet in disguise. An 
orator of powerful presence and 
brazen countenance, a typical de- 
magogue, has struck an attitude, 
demanding the condemnation of 
the accused. The crowd beyond 
no 



The Sorrowful Way- 



is surging to and fro, a mass of 
senseless, fanatical faces, and one 
young man, shutting his eyes 
and opening his mouth, after the 
fashion of his kind in all ages, 
is bawling, " Crucify Him ! crucify 
Him ! " A Roman soldier, de- 
tached, indifferent, dominant, 
keeps back the rabble with the 
butt of his spear, and protects 
Jesus from unlicensed violence. 
Neither among rulers nor mob 
neither in judge nor soldier has 
the prisoner a friend. 

And yet even in this evil and 
hostile atmosphere there are two 
people whose faces have no hatred, 
whose faces pity Jesus. Beside 
the wall and behind the seat of the 
scribes a woman is standing with 
III 



Companions of 



her child in her arms. She is 
a young mother with a serene, 
comely face, and she is a daughter 
of the people. Drawn by an irre- 
sistible interest, she had risen 
early and fought her way into 
Pilate's Judgment Hall, carrying 
the little one with her, as a work- 
ing mother must when she goes 
abroad. She had secured a place 
whence the face of Jesus could be 
seen, and she held her boy that 
he might share the sight. Sorrow 
and concern, respect and affection 
mingle on her countenance ; for 
her judge and elders, people and 
soldiers have disappeared ; she 
sees Jesus only, bound and help- 
less. Was there between this 
woman and Jesus some personal 

112 



The Sorrowful Way- 
tie, such as the last three years 
had woven between many and the 
Master ? Had He healed her boy 
sick unto death and given him 
back unto his mother ? Was this 
one of the mothers who brought 
their children unto Jesus, this a 
child on whose head Jesus' un- 
bound hands had rested ? Did 
she carry in her own experience 
the proof of His goodness, against 
which all charges of priests and 
Pharisees were vain ? 

It needeth not there should 
have been any incident : it is 
enough that she was a woman 
with her child. Among all classes 
of the community save one Jesus 
had friends and foes. If a Roman 
official condemned Him a Roman 

8 113 



Companions of 



officer showed greater faith in 
Him than any one in Israel ; if 
the Pharisees hounded Jesus to 
death two of their number gave 
Him honourable burial ; if the 
mob of Jerusalem were bitter 
against Him, the Galileans were 
hot in His favour. One class only 
was undivided because they were 
unanimous in their love of Jesus 
— the women with the little chil- 
dren. They did not suspect or 
question, or spy upon Him : they 
trusted, served, adored Him. 
Women made ready their sons to 
be His disciples, afforded a home 
to Him in His weariness, sup- 
ported Him with their substance, 
anointed Him for burial, wrapt 
His Body in spices. They never 
114 



The Sorrowful Way 

vexed His heart, never disap- 
pointed Him, never failed Him ; 
they sustained Him by their sym- 
pathy all His ministry, and they 
paid Him their last public tribute 
of devotion on the Sorrowful 
Way. 

It was surely almost incredible, 
and altogether horrible, that after 
Jesus had lived three years among 
them after the very likeness of 
God, in grace and compassion, the 
whole nation — priests, scholars, 
merchants, working folk — should 
unite in one fierce confederacy of 
hate, and cry aloud like wild beasts 
for His crucifixion, and follow Him 
to the Cross with satisfaction, and 
relent not till He was dead. And 
chiefly it was saddest that the 
115 



Companions of 



working folk, from whom He 
sprang, whom He loved, whom 
He helped, should have been 
hottest against Him ; and it is 
enough to make their friends de- 
spair of the ungrateful, fickle, fool- 
ish people. Yet is it never to be 
forgotten that one half only of the 
people were mad and wicked, and 
that the other half were full of in- 
sight and wisdom. If the men, 
misled by priests and bigots, rent 
the sky with their yells, " Crucify 
Him ! crucify Him ! " their wives, 
sisters, and daughters had a tender 
heart to Jesus, and followed Him 
as He carried His Cross along the 
Sorrowful Way with weeping and 
lamentations. 

It is not unknown that men 
ii6 



The Sorrowful Way 



should criticise women as persons 
deficient in judgment and unac- 
quainted with affairs, while they 
congratulate themselves because 
they are shrewd and capable. 
This comparison is doubtless just 
on that lower level where we deal 
with rules and plans and words 
and the machinery of life. When 
we rise to the tableland of Good- 
ness and Truth, then men move 
slowly with the heavy foot of rea- 
son, but women fly swiftly with the 
wings of instinct. Very likely it 
could be shown unto the satis- 
faction of cold-blooded men, with 
fixed ideas and traditional preju- 
dices, that Jesus was a heretic and 
a dangerous teacher ; that it might 
be safer for the Jewish faith and 
"7 



Companions of 



commonwealth that He be re- 
moved and silenced. One imag- 
ines that in debate the husband 
would have the better of his wife, 
backed as he was by the judgment 
of the wise and great m.en of the 
nation, and that his wife would 
take refuge in a woman's last 
fortress — her inward conviction. 
" There are the facts," he would 
say, with coarse masculine com- 
mon sense ; and " I know," she 
would reply, with the certainty 
of an instinct. Time is the final 
arbiter, and time has decided in 
favour of the womanly instinct : 
the mighty ecclesiastics and shrewd 
men of the world were wrong, and 
committed the master crime of 
history ; simple working women 



The Sorrowful Way 

were right, and did their best to 
redeem the crime. When the 
daughters of Jerusalem wept over 
Jesus they made atonement for 
the rulers of the nation. 

Their tears fell on the heart of 
Jesus as a healing balm — His 
friends were faithful to the last ; 
their cries broke His silence — 
He must render them a last ser- 
vice. They had pitied Him in 
His Passion and He was grateful 
to the honest hearts : in their 
womanly self-sacrifice they had 
given Him what they rather 
needed for themselves. He was 
carrying the Cross for a brief 
space : they were bowed down 
beneath the load of labour all 
their days. He was silenced and 



Companions of 



tortured for a day : they had no 
appeal from oppression till they 
died. He exhausted His own 
suffering : they suffered once in 
themselves, once in their children. 
As they looked on Him, the 
marks of unspeakable insult on 
His face, the blood stains on His 
white garment, the body yielding 
beneath the Cross, there seemed 
no sorrow like unto His. As He 
looked on them, their care-worn 
faces, on whom the burden of the 
family had fallen, their youth aged 
before its time, their hands hard- 
ened with drudgery; as He thought 
of the narrowness, sameness, toil- 
someness, weariness of their lot, it 
seemed to Jesus that there was no 
sorrow like unto theirs. He spake 

I20 



The Sorrowful Way 



unto the generations which were 
to come ; He looked beyond the 
calamity which must befal this 
fanatical city ; He accepted the 
working women of the race of all 
ages as His fellow sufferers in a 
longer travail. " Weep not for 
Me, My Passion is brief ; weep 
for yourselves and for your chil- 
dren, yours is continual." 

Martyrdom has its kinds and 
degrees, and the honourable word 
has been too much restricted and 
localised. If any one be burned 
or tortured, if any one suffer cruel 
slander or insult, if any one deny 
himself innocent joy and just ease 
for the sake of faith, then doubt- 
less he belongs to the " noble 
army." If one simply lives not 

121 



Companions of 



for himself but for others from 
childhood to old age, without 
relief, without joy, without out- 
look, then that person in his 
obscure, commonplace, endless 
travail, is surely of the same 
blood and has won the same 
honour. This is the life of a 
woman of the class which labours 
and is heavy-laden, in every age 
and in every land. While still a 
child she is withdrawn from 
play and baptised into the 
drudgery of the little household, 
gaining a pathetic knowledge 
before her time. Before she has 
come to womanhood the girl is 
sent to service, where she has 
no leisure, no rights of individu- 
ality, no gaiety of youth. Her 

122 



The Sorrowful Way 

idyll of love, when it comes, is 
fettered by circumstances and 
shorn of romance. With her 
marriage her last hour of rest has 
gone, and before her now lies the 
travail of birth, the anxious charge 
of children, the waiting on her 
husband, the careful management 
of small affairs. She is the first 
to rise and the last to sleep, and 
between the rising up and the 
lying down there is only toil 
which knows no remission, which 
descends to the humblest offices. 
What doth this patient, selfless 
woman also endure at the hands 
of a brutal husband, by the dis- 
respect of rough children, through 
the squalor of circumstances. For 
her there remaineth no rest till 
123 



Companions of 

some day they fold the thin worn 
hands on her breast and let the 
tired house-mother here have her 
long sleep. 

Yet if the daughters of Jeru- 
salem miss their rest they have 
even here their reward. Beyond 
any other class in the community, 
save, perhaps, physicians they 
enter into the very secret of the 
religion of Jesus and receive the 
impress of His character. They 
need not to be reminded of His 
Cross for it is ever on their shoul- 
ders ; they have not to be sum- 
moned to self-denial for it is their 
daily unconscious life. Amid the 
limitations and hardships of their 
lot they exhibit the meekness, en- 
durance, charity, mercy of Jesus. 
124 



The Sorrowful Way 



They realise the parable of the 
Good Samaritan, and fulfil the 
Law of Love. This is the truth 
in the legend of Veronica, which 
is the poem of the Daughters of 
Jerusalem. A woman, full of 
pity for Jesus as He fell to the 
ground beneath the cross, stooped 
and wiped the bloody sweat from 
His face. When she recovered 
her handkerchief there was no 
stain upon it, but instead thereof 
the very likeness of the Lord. 



125 



A Malefactor 



127 



A Malefactor 



WHEN Jesus was crucified 
between two thieves. His 
enemies had inflicted their last 
indignity, and the irony of history 
was complete. From the begin- 
ning of His public life unto the 
end, whatever He had deserved 
was refused Him, and whatever 
He had not deserved was rendered 
unto Him. Beyond all the proph- 
ets who had ever taught the 
nation Jesus revealed the Father, 
and He was judged guilty of blas- 
phemy. There was no worthy 
rite of the Jewish religion He did 
9 129 



Companions of 

not observe, and the anointed 
priests of God demanded His 
death. In His discourses He ex- 
pounded the law of Moses most 
perfectly, and its guardians dogged 
His steps with spies. For the 
sake of the people and their 
neglected souls He refused to come 
to terms with the rulers, and the 
blinded people vociferously de- 
manded His crucifixion. Above 
all others He had loved and blessed 
the helpless classes of the com- 
munity — women and children — 
and they, poor souls, had to wit- 
ness His agony. Against the 
Romans He was careful to say 
no word, and a Roman played the 
coward and betrayed Roman jus- 
tice that Jesus might not escape. 
130 



The Sorrowful Way 

He was the hoHest man ever seen 
in Israel or on the face of the 
earth, and the Church did not rest 
night or day till Jesus was cruci- 
fied between two thieves, after a 
brigand had been preferred before 
Him. The moral laws of the 
universe were inverted for three 
years in the case of this man, so 
that while Herod was king and 
Pilate was governor and Caiaphas 
high priest, Jesus was sent to the 
cross. 

Standing in that day one could 
only have seen a ghastly injustice ; 
standing at this distance one finds 
in this last humiliation a proof of 
Jesus' utter sympathy with His 
brethren and another chapter in 
His redemption. Before He had 
131 



Companions of 

associated freely with simple folk 
who knew no theology^ with Sama- 
ritans who were heretics, with pub- 
licans who were political offenders, 
with women who were social out- 
casts, but He had not yet touched 
the lowest depths of human life. 
Such people had wandered with- 
out a shepherd, they had fallen 
into error, they had become the 
slaves of circumstances, they had 
played the fool before man and 
God ; but they were not criminals, 
and had not upon their lives the 
most hopeless and indelible brand. 
Without the association of the 
three crosses one had not been 
able to say of our Master that He 
has condescended to the last iden- 
tification with our race. As He 
132 



The Sorrowful Way- 
dies between two thieves, stretch- 
ing out His arms towards them, 
and inclining His ear unto their 
cry, He embraceth all men within 
His Evangel and within His 
heart. 

Jesus' conversation with the 
thief who repented is indeed a 
Gospel in brief, very full and 
comforting, wherein many mys- 
teries of the spiritual life are re- 
vealed. When a man comes to his 
lowest estate^ he will find Jesus beside 
him. Sometimes a false glory of 
romance is cast round a criminal 
so that he becometh as a hero unto 
the foolish people who are ever 
inclined to be led astray by marsh 
lights, born of corruption, and to 
belittle the shining of the sun. So 
133 



Companions of 

it came to pass that a brigand took 
such hold on the perverted imagi- 
nation of Jerusalem that the mul- 
titude preferred Barabbas to the 
Lord of Glory, and in their ad- 
miration the miserable man had an 
antidote to his sense of guilt, so 
that what was surely the very mo- 
ment of degradation for our race 
was his crowning honour. But 
the thief of the cross was not a 
chief in the profession of crime ; 
he was only a common and ordi- 
nary evil-doer whose petty offences 
were redeemed by no audacity and 
made no appeal. His would be a 
common-place history. A foolish 
child who would receive no in- 
struction, a headstrong lad who 
would not be controlled, an idle 
134 



The Sorrowful Way 

young man who would not work, 
he had drifted into evil company. 
He had committed some misde- 
meanour and been once forgiven ; 
he had repeated it and been pun- 
ished ; he had turned again to his 
foolishness and had been cast 
finally out of respectability ; he 
had been at last caught and con- 
demned to death. What else could 
be done with him, this piece of 
worthless human refuse ? What 
loss could there be to the commu- 
nity by his death ? — there would 
be a gain. Who would miss him ? 
None — his mother being dead. 
Within an hour or two this obscure 
and abject wretch would be blotted 
out from the earth, and so would 
end a squalid tragedy. 

T3S 



Companions of 

There was indeed but one man 
living to whom this dying outcast 
was dear, and it had come to pass 
that the two were hanging side 
by side in a common disgrace and 
rejection. Almost certainly this 
thief had heard of Jesus in the 
talk of the roadside ; very likely 
he had hung on the outskirts of 
the crowd when Jesus preached, 
and words of the Lord had floated 
out to him such as, " Come unto 
Me, ye that labour and are heavy 
laden, and I will give you rest." 
As he was after all a man, this ab- 
ject must have had his own regrets 
and dreams ; he must have wished 
he had done something with his 
morsel of life, and had not flung 
it into the ditch. It was then his 
136 



The Sorrowful Way 



opportunity to repent and begin 
again : in the Friend of sinners 
was hope, and a welcome for his 
kind. If such a thought visited 
his mind he was hindered by his 
pride, which had not yet been 
finally vanquished, and by the 
distance of Jesus, who was then 
in a high place. Both barriers 
had been broken down, for he 
was now fastened to a cross, beaten 
and despairing, and Jesus had been 
cast forth by the people as one 
not worthy to live. They met, 
this poor wreck of a man and 
Jesus, the Saviour of all men, 
flung together by the will of God, 
each on his cross. 

When a man is hardened by the 
'punishment of law^ he may be soft- 
137 



Companions of 

ened by the sight of goodness. It 
was no doubt right and needful 
that this malefactor be condemned 
by public opinion, and driven out 
from the midst of law-abiding 
people, and laid under various 
pains, and it might be to the gain 
of society that he cease to live. 
By such severity a community 
protects itself from evil-doers, and 
places a premium on virtue, but 
it is not by such measures that 
the soul of the sinner is saved. 
As one penalty was added to an- 
other upon this life, the soul within 
also added one sin to another, 
growing not in penitence, obe- 
dience, well-doing, but in bitter- 
ness, lawlessness, violence, till this 
enemy of society came to such 
138 



The Sorrowful Way 

a height of hatred that he joined 
with his fellow in cursing Christ. 

This was the bitter fling of 
moral despair, not the voice of 
his better self, and as he hung 
beside the Lord a change came 
over the malefactor. He knew 
little of Jesus, but he was certain 
that Jesus had not deserved to 
suffer. He knew little of him- 
self, but he was certain that he 
had deserved to suffer. The sin- 
less hung upon one tree, the 
sinner on another, and the grace 
of the Lord, who prayed for His 
enemies, and endured in silence, 
began to tell on his soul. In the 
presence of this august purity, of 
this tender pity, the malefactor 
examined his life and judged his 
139 



Companions of 

sins. What the law with all its 
penalties could not accomplish, 
Jesus wrought, who neither threat- 
ened nor reproached, who only 
prayed and suffered. Upon His 
Cross Jesus was stronger than all 
the officers of justice, for they 
could only pierce the malefactor's 
body, but He had pierced his 
soul. 

When a man maketh a prayer 
to Jesus it is best to leave himself 
altogether in Jesus hands. It was 
given unto this malefactor in his 
low estate to attain unto a trium- 
phant faith and to render a grate- 
ful honour unto Jesus. When 
his friends had forsaken the Lord, 
this man became His disciple ; 
when his nation had condemned 
140 



The Sorrowful Way 



the Lord, this man justified Him ; 
when the Romans sent Him to 
a cross, this man acknowledged 
Him as King of heaven and 
earth. Considering all things, 
this was the highest faith in the 
Gospels, which believed in spite 
of sight ; and, considering all 
things, this was the finest tribute 
paid to Jesus in the Gospels, 
which of a sudden transformed a 
cross into a throne. And the very 
essence of this faith and honour 
lay in the utter self-abandonment 
of the prayer. There were many 
things the malefactor did not 
need, but might have asked ; 
many things he needed, and could 
have asked ; many things he 
needed, and did not know how 
141 



Companions of 



to ask. His case was extreme, 
his time was short, his opportu- 
nity immense. His wisdom and 
humility were also great. He cast 
himself on the Lord's goodwill 
and wisdom, and on the riches of 
His liberality. " One thing alone 
I crave in the day of Thy power : 
give one thought to him who 
hung beside Thee on his cross, 
and it sufficeth." And doubtless 
one thought of the Lord is salva- 
tion for us as for this malefactor. 

When Jesus dealeth with a 
man He useth such knowledge as 
a man has. Long ago this man's 
mother had given him lessons in 
religion and had taught him con- 
cerning Paradise; how, as the 
race had gone out from a garden, 
142 



The Sorrowful Way 

to a garden would God's chosen 
people return, and there live in 
peace and joy. She would teach 
him God's commandments and 
beseech him to keep them that 
he might see long life, and they 
might meet in the Paradise of 
God. With such instructions and 
hopes would the mother of this 
man train her boy, and bind 
them on his heart with love. As 
seed would she drop her words 
into his mind, and water them 
with prayer, rejoicing at the 
appearance of the green herb, 
when her lad in his best mo- 
ments responded to her love and 
promised obedience. Afterwards 
came the flood, which devastated 
the spring pastures and covered 
143 



Companions of 

them with blackness. If that 
mother were living on earth, 
where we see but do not foresee, 
when he played the fool, her 
faith would be sorely tried and 
when she died in sorrow the 
neighbours would be apt to con- 
sider that her labours had been 
in vain, and that the good had 
been finally destroyed. It really 
only waited the light of Christ to 
awake and spring again. Did not 
the remembrance of early days 
awake in the malefactor's breast 
at the sight of Jesus, and when 
he spake of the Messiah's king- 
dom was it not his mother's teach- 
ing ? Above the waste of sin 
rose at last the tender grass of 
repentance and faith, and, as we 
144 



The Sorrowful Way 

imagine, the fond labour of a 
mother was repaid when the male- 
factor returned to God. 

When Jesus saveth a man^ His 
grace is independent of time. For 
this man was in a day converted 
from his sin and perfected in holi- 
ness, so that within a few hours 
he was in hell, where he cursed 
the Lord, and in heaven, where 
he stood with Jesus in Paradise. 
Unto the faith which could recog- 
nise the Lord in the dust of death 
and believe in a kingdom for Him 
who was dying on a cross, all 
things were possible. It also be- 
came the Lord to signalise His 
victory over sin by a magnificent 
achievement, and by one sweep 

of His arm to lift a sinner from 
10 145 



Companions of 



the lowest depths to the heights 
of glory. It is told in an excel- 
lent legend of the early Church 
how the penitent malefactor, rely- 
ing on the Lord's word, took his 
way to the gate of Paradise and 
sought entrance, and how the holy 
angels assured him that whatsoever 
the Lord had said would be per- 
formed, but that he must wait till 
Jesus had returned from the lower 
places, whither He had gone to 
release the blessed Dead. So the 
malefactor stood by the gate while 
the angels held converse with him 
regarding Calvary, and Heaven 
bent over to see the firstfruits 
of the Lord's redemption. Then 
came the Lord with His company 
of patriarchs, prophets, martyrs, 
146 



The Sorrowful Way 



from our forefather Adam to John 
the Baptist, and as they passed all 
looked at him, for this malefactor 
was the beginning of the New 
Testament Church. But I dare 
to think that, although the Lord 
smiled on him and all the saints 
bade him welcome, this man waited 
till he saw his mother, and they 
went together into Paradise. 



147 



A Roman 
Officer 



149 



A Roman 
Officer 



IT is not to be taken for 
granted that he was a better 
man than his fellow officers in 
the garrison of Jerusalem, but it 
may be assumed that he did not 
relish his day's work. When 
a soldier is called to war or 
wounds he is proud, for this is 
the height of his calling; when 
he is detached to guard an exe- 
cution he is filled with disgust, 
for this is a humiliation. With 
his company this centurion had 
gone on duty in the morning at 



Companions of 

Pilate's Palace, and it was late 
afternoon before they were re- 
leased. He had heard the trial of 
Jesus and the howling of the 
rabble : he had handed Jesus 
over to his men for scourging, 
and looked on with a callousness 
born of a rough life : he had 
escorted Jesus and the male- 
factors through the streets, and 
taken care that they were kept 
safe for the legal punishment : 
he had selected the site for the 
crosses and overseen from a 
height the nailing of the con- 
demned : when the crosses were 
raised with their quivering load 
he satisfied himself that they 
were firmly set, and then through 
the long hours, as the priests 
152 



The Sorrowful Way 



mocked and his men gambled 
for the garments, and the cruci- 
fied suffered, he sat on his 
horse, silent, watchful, immovable. 
When the criminals were proved 
to be dead and the bodies had 
been disposed of, and the crosses 
removed, he gathered his com- 
pany together and marched them 
back to their barracks. He went 
to his room ; his servant removed 
the heavy armour which had 
been as a fiery prison in the 
scorching sunlight, and brought 
his master a cup of wine. It had 
been a long day for the cen- 
turion, and a sorry day's work, 
and he was glad in his soul that 
it was over. 

Yet as the shadows gathered 
IS3 



Companions of 



in his room and he sat by him- 
self, he knew that this spring 
day would never pass from his 
memory. Very likely he had 
assisted at many crucifixions, and 
might have to assist at many 
more before he was recalled from 
this land of trouble, but he had 
never met any prisoner like 
Jesus. As this Man stood in 
His whiteness before Pilate, 
He was distinguished and placed 
apart by a certain dignity of 
manhood and bravery of soul 
which neither bonds nor insults 
could obscure, which they only 
threw into relief. Ordinary men 
had been degraded by the 
scourging and the mocking : this 
Man left the degradation with 
154 



The Sorrowful Way 

His enemies. Common men had 
cried out in their pain as they 
were fastened to the wood : this 
Man lifted up His voice in sup- 
plication. As unhappy wretches 
hung upon their crosses they 
rent the air with oaths, but this 
Man cared for the mother who 
wept at the foot of the cross. 
Once He did lift up His voice 
in sore agony, but it was the 
mysterious sorrow of the soul, 
not any pain of the body which 
affected Him. His last cry was 
not one of defeat, but of triumph, 
as of one who had given him a 
great task and had completed it. 
Upon the blunt and honest 
soldier this spectacle of moral 
heroism had its due effect, and 
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Companions of 

it needed not the darkness and 
the earthquake to call forth his 
confession " This Man was a son 
of God." 

It ; were untrue to read into 
this utterance the meaning of the 
creeds, for the centurion was cer- 
tainly not a Christian theologian, 
nor were it profitable for this 
were to lose the value of his 
testimony. One must exercise 
imagination and reconstruct the 
circumstances. As a pagan this 
man had his theology and be- 
lieved in beings of another world 
— stronger, braver, wiser than 
ourselves, — who on occasion ap- 
peared and took part in the affairs 
of this life. As a man he had 
his ideal of manhood^ how one 
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The Sorrowful Way 

ought to carry himself in the 
battle, and he had seen many 
whom he had approved, good 
comrades, fearless soldiers, loyal 
Romans. This day one had sur- 
passed them all, since to an un- 
shaken fortitude in the sorest 
trial he had added a singular 
sweetness and equanimity of soul. 
Nothing in the way of manliness 
so strong, so modest, so winning, 
had the centurion ever witnessed, 
and he could not believe that 
any other had ever beheld the 
like. The Jews might call this 
man a false prophet and a blas- 
phemer, it was to be expected of 
their ill-temper and blind fanati- 
cism. If he knew anything at 
all of the world and of men this 
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Companions of 

Jesus was lifted above Jews and 
Romans alike : He was nothing 
less than " a Son of God." 

The excellency of our Master 
Cometh not after the same fashion 
to every one's soul, but hath vari- 
ous avenues of access. Some have 
been arrested by the insight and 
authority of His words, and have 
been convinced that He is a 
teacher sent from God. They are 
clever people, and have received 
Jesus by the intellect. Some have 
been charmed by the perfect grace 
of Jesus' character, and have seen 
in Him the very love of God. 
They are emotional people, and 
have received Jesus by the heart. 
There are others to whom the 
Lord has come as the revelation 
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The Sorrowful Way 



and incarnation of duty ; as one 
who has kept the eternal law 
without rebate ; as one who has 
made righteous living visible and 
glorious. They are practical 
people and they accept the Mas- 
ter with their conscience. For 
years they have been doing their 
duty with the best light they had, 
and in the best way they could, 
without boasting, and with many 
lights. They have also an un- 
expressed and unrealised idea of 
how things ought to be done, and 
this secret standard keeps them 
humble. One day they behold it 
fulfilled in the Master, and nothing 
will persuade them afterwards that 
Jesus is as one of ourselves. 

It is certain that we are apt to 
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Companions of 



do less than justice to this class, 
who are chiefly men, and of whom 
this officer remains an excellent 
type. They have neither mind 
nor relish for the august mysteries 
of religion, its problems, theories, 
doctrines ; and openly declare 
themselves ignorant or weary of 
such great matters. They are 
therefore judged to be unbelieving 
and unspiritual. Or they are in- 
sensible to the chief experiences 
of the religious life. They neither 
weep nor sing as others do with 
joyful fervour, and are ever suspi- 
cious of these high emotions. They 
are therefore counted cold and 
worldly. Yet is it to be remem- 
bered that one may revel in a creed 
and have no share in the Christ life ; 
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The Sorrowful Way 

that one may overflow with senti- 
ment and neglect Christ's com- 
mandments. Those whom we 
mean would not call themselves 
religious at all, and have a very 
lowly idea of their place before God 
and man ; and yet, without doc- 
trine or experience, they have 
come to the heart of religion, be- 
cause they are keeping a good con- 
science and fulfilling the Will of 
God. 

What a multitude of men can 
be found in every land whose one 
idea is not to save their souls, or 
to earn a reward, but simply to do 
the work God has laid to their 
hand — to make provision for those 
whom they love, or who are left 
to their charge ; to help any un- 



Companions of 

fortunate person in trouble ; to 
serve the commonwealth in some 
lowly place. They are diligent 
and honourable merchants, work- 
men putting their last grain of 
skill into the task, sailors standing 
by the ship through the wildest 
seas, shepherds saving the sheep 
in the winter's storm, servants 
faithful in the least things to the 
family under whose roof they have 
lived. Upon their conscientious 
and unremitting labour depends 
the welfare of society, and they 
do their work hardly and sorely. 
Theirs oftentimes is loss, disap- 
pointment, pain, danger, and yet 
they make no moan, no parade. 
Theirs is sometimes irksome and 
hateful work, but do it they will 
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The Sorrowful Way 

till it be finished, without asking 
any credit or applause. Under 
the blazing sun they keep guard, 
and in the evening, when they are 
released, neither they nor any one 
else says or thinks that these 
modest, faithful men have done 
well. 

Among all the companions of 
the " Sorrowful Way " the centu- 
rion has the humblest place, and 
it may seem bold to associate him 
with Jesus. He was not like unto 
the apostles, nor the godly women, 
nor the private friends of Jesus, 
nor even as the penitent malefactor. 
He met Jesus for the first time 
on the Way, and nothing passed 
between him and the Master save 
the stroke of the nails. Jesus had 
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The Sorrowful Way 



yielded up the ghost before the 
centurion made his confession, and 
that honest man never expected to 
hear of it again, as his kind would 
be much astonished to learn that 
they had done any good thing ; 
but when next he saw the Lord, 
Jesus had not forgotten, and unto 
this nameless Roman officer that 
word would be fulfilled, " If any 
man confess Me before men, him 
will I confess before My Father 
and the holy angels." 



164 



The Funeral 
Of Jesus 



165 



The Funeral 
Of Jesus 



TWO spectacles are common 
to every class, and have 
affected the mind in every age. 
The one is the public celebration 
of joy — a wedding ; the other of 
sorrow — a funeral ; both are the 
witness of love. At their approach 
they arrest instant attention, and 
cast their spell on the most callous 
people. Pure hearts wish happi- 
ness to the bride in her whiteness, 
whether she be princess or peasant; 
kindly hearts pray God's consola- 
tions for the mourners in their 
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Companions of 

black, whether it be Darby follow- 
ing Joan to her rest, or young 
children weeping for their lost 
mother. He is altogether heart- 
less who is not gladdened or 
solemnised by these mysteries of 
human life, brought before one 
as in a sacrament. They repre- 
sent the poles of feeling, yet 
they are not equal in power, for 
the sacrament of lamentation has 
an altogether peculiar majesty. 
Should the two processions meet 
at the gate of the churchyard, 
whither we all come in our chief 
moments, it is the children of joy 
who yield to the children of sor- 
row. Before the signs of loss 
and woe gladness bows her head 
and departs ; the poorest funeral 
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The Sorrowful Way 

IS invested with the awful and 
omnipotent authority of death. 

Among all the funerals ever 
seen on the earth surely the most 
pathetic was that of Jesus. His 
very body, tortured and pierced, 
belonged not to His mother and 
His friends, but to His enemies, 
and He had not, what the hum- 
blest Galilean would have, a place 
of burial. Having bought the 
souls of men from the power of 
the enemy with His own precious 
blood. His earthly Body had to 
be redeemed, as we guess, with 
silver and gold, from a Roman 
magistrate ; and having opened 
the Kingdom of Heaven to all 
believers with His pierced hand, 
a rich man had to afford Him 
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Companions of 

the hospitality of a tomb. What 
a sad irony it was to take 
down His Body from the Cross. 
How helpless it lay in their 
hands, with the double weight of 
death, which once was so charged 
with life that if one only touched 
the hem of its encircling garment 
she had healing of her long 
disease. Very tenderly they 
closed His eyes, which had be- 
held every honest man with love, 
and had wept over Jerusalem, 
to whose welcome the children 
had leaped from their mother s 
arms, before whose majesty 
Pharisees had quailed and slunk 
away. They laid His hands to 
rest, which had made the leper 
whole and given sight unto the 
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The Sorrowful Way 

blind. They cleansed the blood 
from His wounded side, where 
John had once heard His heart 
beat with love to all mankind. 
Jesus, before whom death used to 
flee and give up his prey, was now 
Himself in the power of Death. 

It pains us on first thought 
that the Body of the Lord should 
be hurriedly, and almost secretly, 
taken down from the Cross, on 
which He had triumphed glori- 
ously, and hidden in a stranger's 
grave, for Whose burial no state 
and splendour had been too great; 
but on second thoughts the funeral 
of Jesus seems most becoming and 
worthy of His life. Modestly 
He entered the world, born of 
a village maiden, and cradled in 
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Companions of 

the manger of an inn ; lowly He 
began His work, baptised with 
Jerusalem sinners in the Jordan ; 
meekly He taught and worked, 
who did not cry nor cause His 
voice to be heard in the streets : 
if He died in a public place in 
face of soldiers and priests and 
people, this was the one act in 
which He had no say, and now 
without show or pomp He must 
be buried. As He came so 
would He leave, in quietness and 
humility. And it were not right 
to think He had no honour at 
the last, for could anything be 
more perfect than the burial of 
Jesus. Were one desiring the 
best for his friend, would it be 
that his body should be carried 
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The Sorrowful Way 

in a glittering carriage and laid in 
a grave which was never to be 
visited ; should be followed by- 
mourners who had regret on their 
faces, but no tears in their hearts ? 
Or would it not be that, few or 
many, all that buried his friend 
should come for love's sake, and 
his epitaph be written on their 
hearts for ever ? If this be so, 
then was our Master well buried, 
since love received His Body, 
love composed it after the agony, 
love wrapped it in spices and white 
linen, love carried it to the gar- 
den, love laid it in the tomb, love 
closed the door that He might 
sleep. No hireling, no stranger 
had anything to do with the burial 
of Jesus. 

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Companions of 

The lowliness of Jesus was 
marvellous, and without limits, 
but it could not avail to hide 
Him from those who were watch- 
ing for Him, either because they 
loved Him or because they hated 
Him. Unto His infancy gathered 
certain who were not many in 
number, but who were typical of 
His Church in heaven and on 
earth. There were the Holy 
Angels, who sang the Birth- 
Song of Bethlehem, and aged 
Simeon, who stood for the saints ; 
there were the simple shepherds, 
of them who toil, and the wise 
men from the East, of them who 
are learned ; there were Joseph 
and Mary, of them who were His 
family. Alas ! there was also 
174 



The Sorrowful Way 

Herod, who desired His life and 
the soldiers who slew His little 
brothers, the Holy Innocents. 
These all came, as it were, to His 
cradle, wherein He was uncon- 
scious, and paid their homage — 
or did Him such injury as they 
could. Unto His Cross, whereon 
He was stretched in death, friends 
and foes came as to His cradle. 
The soldiers came again, and they 
pierced His own heart now, which 
was already broken. There came 
unto that Cross also certain, in 
name of His Church, and did 
Him the last service, and the 
gathering at His Cross was still 
more honourable than the gather- 
ing at His cradle. Six persons, 
at least (and more may have 
175 



Companions of 

been), united in the funeral of 
Jesus, and they fall into pairs, 
each of which had a special reason 
for their presence. 

Two women of His blood, and 
the first was His mother, who 
in that hour has fully earned 
her title of Our Lady of Sor- 
rows, and unto whom it is 
not wonderful that women of 
all ages have turned in their 
anguish. Never had any mother 
such privilege, never therefore 
had any such pain. When she 
presented her child in the temple 
Mary was told that a sword 
would pierce her heart, and she 
hardly possessed her child before 
the sword was seeking Him. He 
was a mystery to her in His 
176 



The Sorrowful Way 

boyhood ; in after years He 
went His own way, to her fre- 
quent dismay. During the days 
of His tribulation she suffered, 
with her Son ; for every slander, 
insult, blow, found their last 
home in her heart, and when it 
came to the Cross, the nails 
went through her hands and feet, 
and the Virgin agonised beneath 
with her Son. A costly gift had 
He been to her, and yet of all 
women was she not most blessed 
of all, is she not most envied ? 
What homage had been hers in 
the home of Nazareth, what 
obedience, thoughtfulness, com- 
fort, and care in the days of her 
widowhood ! What holy pride, 
what pure joy! What spiritual 

12 177 



Companions of 

satisfaction in the after years, in 
spite of her motherly doubts and 
fears ! One Son left no regret, 
one Son had fulfilled every hope, 
one Son had made a Galilean 
cottage into our Father's home, 
and His mother had come to 
bury Him. 

The other woman of His kins- 
folk, as we take it, was Salome, 
the sister of Mary, and the mother 
of John. Some families are coarse 
in blood, and the women thereof 
are passionate, evil-tempered, 
worldly ; some are of fine blood, 
and their women are gentle- 
spirited, imaginative, and it was 
surely the purest stock in Israel 
which gave to the generation the 
mother of Jesus and the mother 
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The Sorrowful Way 



of John. For Jesus Salome had 
waited, with Simeon and Anna and 
the saints, and in Jesus she had 
been satisfied; for Jesus Salome 
had prepared her son and in Him 
she had seen her son come to his 
height. When son and mother 
meet beside one Lord, sharing one 
faith and one love, religion has 
accomplished her perfect work, 
and the heart of Salome was filled 
with a sad gratitude to Jesus. 

Two of the mourners were the 
conspicuous trophies of His grace, 
and could only be brought to- 
gether by the Person of the Lord. 
Unto one art, with the spiritual 
instinct of her best days has, by 
the hand of Bartolommeo, Savon- 
arola's friend, given the head of 
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Companions of 



Jesus. John kneels and raises 
the dear helpless head, yet cannot 
endure the sight of the face. 
Once he had watched those lips, 
and every word which fell he had 
read in the light of those eyes; 
now those lips were silent and 
those eyes closed. He looks away 
with the countenance of one who 
has been cast out of heaven, and 
to whom the years hencefDrward 
would be laden with the sense of 
irreparable loss. For Jesus found 
this man, in his outward life a 
Galilean fisherman and in his 
inner being a natural saint, and 
He opened unto him the gates 
of vision, and John saw into the 
secret of all things, which is the 
heart of God. Unto the other 
i8o 



The Sorrowful Way 

one of this pair the same art 
always assigns the feet of Jesus, 
(or St. Mary Magdalene made 
these her own at Simon's feast. 
Again she bends her head, and 
her golden hair covers His feet: 
she cleanses them from the dust 
of death as once she did from 
the dust of the road, and mourns 
that His enemies have pierced 
His feet with nails, whose heart 
she pierced with her sin. A sin- 
ner, by the unchastened impulses 
of her rich passionate nature, 
she had wandered into strange 
places, and was stained with the 
mire of the streets, and Jesus had 
restored her to herself, redeeming 
a great passion, and consecrating 
it unto God. 

i8i 



Companions of 

And two of the little company 
were of another order in society, 
and of another way in thought 
from the four. Nicodemus was a 
scholar and teacher of the law, a 
man of authority and learning, of 
candour also and an honest mind. 
After anxious reasoning and at a 
great sacrifice, this Rabbi became 
Jesus' disciple, and if he did not 
make open profession and attach 
himself to Jesus' personal follow- 
ing, let it be remembered that he 
never denied the Lord. Be it also 
remembered that when the council 
would have condemned Jesus un- 
tried and unheard, Nicodemus 
broke silence and pled for justice, 
and at last, when all had forsaken 
the Lord, this man's courage rose 
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The Sorrowful Way 

to its highest, and his love burned 
clearest, and he came with spices 
for the Lord's body. Joseph of 
Arimathaea was of the class which, 
after the Pharisees, was the most 
inaccessible to Christ, for he was 
rich in goods and lived at ease. 
Very likely Jesus never knew him, 
and he had never said " Master " 
to Jesus ; but the shrewd man 
of affairs had made his estimate 
of the young prophet, as he had 
made the same of Caiaphas. It 
was not in his power to save the 
noble enthusiast from the hands 
of the mob, for gold availeth not 
against fanaticism, but it could be 
his to see that after death Jesus 
should not be dishonoured. If 
the Master had not lived in rich 
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Companions of 

men's houses in His life He should 

lie in a rich man's grave. The 

tomb which he had prepared for 

himself in his garden, Joseph gave 

without grudging to the Lord, and 

verily he had his reward. For 

the Master used Joseph's tomb 

three days, and then He left it 

open, with angels in His place. 

Blessed was the owner of Geth- 

semane, for in that garden Jesus 

drank His cup, but more blessed 

was Joseph, for in his garden Jesus 

rose from the dead and opened 

the gates of immortality. As the 

good man walked in his pleasaunce 

at eventide he would meditate on 

that empty grave, and one day he 

was laid there himself, where the 

Lord had lain, and the tomb was 
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The Sorrowful Way 

to him the door into the Paradise 
of God. 

And these were the six who 
buried the Master. 

When they stood in the garden, 
having done what they could for 
the loved Body, their sorrow was 
not quite comfortless. His war- 
fare was accomplished, and He 
could suffer no more. Never 
again would Pharisees insult Him, 
nor priests condemn Him, nor 
Judas betray Him, nor soldiers 
nail Him to the Cross. He rested 
at last beyond the reach of troub- 
ling, and God had given His 
Beloved sleep. 

And this was the end of the 
Sorrowful Way. 

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